Consumers may hear that a lot more often after getting health insurance under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

To hold down premiums, major insurers in California have sharply limited the number of doctors and hospitals available to patients in the state’s new health insurance market opening Oct. 1.

New data reveal the extent of those cuts in California, a crucial test bed for the federal healthcare law.

These diminished medical networks are fueling growing concerns that many patients will still struggle to get care despite the nation’s biggest healthcare expansion in half a century.

Consumers could see long wait times, a scarcity of specialists and loss of a longtime doctor.

“These narrow networks won’t work because they cut off access for patients,” said Dr. Richard Baker, executive director of the Urban Health Institute at Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles. “We don’t want this to become a roadblock.”

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But you know, Republicans are really more afraid Obamacare will work – not that it will fail. That, according to Dem mouthpiece Chris Van Hollen, accurately describes the motivation to attack the law instead of working with Democrats to ensure the roll-out is a raging success.

Honestly, when would Republicans find time to fix that monster of a law when they’re so busy kicking kittens and banning tampons?

Finitely available and accessible resources with no effort to compensate. That, and with progressive corruption (e.g. conflation of contributory and non-contributory entitlements), Obamacare is destined to fail, miserably, and take everyone with it.

I have heard a theory that Obamacare was always intended to fail in order to set the stage for a change to single payer. This is a silly theory for 2 reasons. 1: Liberals really are that ignorant of basic economic forces. 2: SINGLE PAYER must fail too!

There are those who will push for single payer no matter what. But the idea that the obamacare trainwreck is some crafty scheme to bring about single payer is just silly. The law was badly written because the whole concept of getting people more health care by regulating insurance is idiotic. There’s just no way to make that into a working system.

And if Single Payer is such a winner then why do Canadians come here for advanced medical treatment? The practical outworking of single payer experienced by both the Canadians and the British is a system of culling those with expensive or complicated diseases.

What makes single payer a grotesquely evil system is that the whole population is lulled into apathy and ignorance of the end result which they are gilded into supporting because it is either cheap or free. That which is cheap or free is always a low quality teaser. I mean, what do you have to complain about when you as an individual appear to get something for nothing and then it doesn’t work? The fact you went through the motions with the appearance of getting something for nothing lulls you into believing you got more than expected. All the while everyone pays higher taxes to supposedly give you this FREE or CHEAP health care that is essentially a worthless jobs program and a balm to consciences for those proclaiming the achievement of universal access. It’s just like the typical warmed over liberal equality of outcome, everyone gets screwed just so the poor can continue to be screwed but kudos to liberals for caring enough to ensure everyone is screwed equally.

An analogy: When I moved to Santa Fe 12 years ago, I had/have excellent insurance and coverage. However, I had rejection letters from three practices I wanted to get into. I couldn’t even get in to see a gyn.–abnormal test right before I moved. (Scary.) At that time, one physician told me that when I went on Medicare in the future, she would not take Medicare coverage. That was 12 years ago. Even my internist now (finally got in), who is for “single payer” and very lefty, said she will take no new Medicare patients. When my husband asked her wasn’t that against her philosphy? She replied: “I have to run my business.” Disjunct, obviously.
Enjoy your Obamacare.

It is already a problem that hospitals are employing doctors, which is a conflict of interest in that the doctor works for the hospital…not the patient. This trend will only make it worse. Hospitals are telling doctors now how to practice medicine according to centralized guidelines, and closely monitor physician ordering patterns.

Hospital CEO’s have a fiduciary responsibility, not a professional one. So, they have and will hire and fire doctors, not based on their competence, but their willingness to go along with the hospital CEO’s financial goals.

I’ve helped to small or large degree, four uncles that passed away over the last decade, plus my Mom that I’ve been fully caring for, with help and praise from home care folks, for eight years. I also have input from a nephew and his Dad that are/were doctors.

Indeed it is the hospitals that have much control … apparently they can afford the lobbyists. Doctors find it easier to sign up with the hospital, and just let hospitals handle the impossible paperwork. The big money is in running up the full Medicare benefits and charging double for the services or supplies, which are probably linked to the hospital.

e.g. when an uncle was ready to go home I inquired “when will he be released?” … “In 8 days, that’s when his medicare time runs out”. I kid you not … he was fine and wanted out. But the hospital had a different schedule. Same with my Mom in a rehab situation, where they wanted her kept in house, which she declared felt like prison. They didn’t listen till I (inadvertently) played a “trump card” which most don’t have.

I know (low trained) home care CNAs getting paid $12/hour plus a few benefits, but the provider collects $85/hour. I wonder if that provider can afford a lobbyist, especially if they are linked to the hospital? I also know the hospital linked equipment provider often charges double or more the cost I can get things for online, and I don’t buy in bulk.

Last time my Mom went to the hospital she was assigned hospital doctors, not her regular doctor. They were incompetent newbies, that lectured me about things wholly wrong, but then yielded to non-doctor staff.

I’ve correctly over-ruled even “regular doctors”, (confirmed by the specialists that show up). But I was chief over these young hospital turkeys, saving the day. I was right routinely, but they seemed to think their role was to think their first inexperienced guess came directly from God, and their role is to get (kids of) patients to accept death (panels?).

My Mom’s crowning moment was when they pulled the tube from her throat and though they assured me she was near death and incoherent, and would never recover, she said “Ice Water”. In other words, get this damn tube out you flucks, and let me clear my throat. Oh so embarrassing for the “she’ll be dead shortly” asshall pretend doctors. (three years ago, she is still healthy, thanks to treating what they refused. They could have killed her though. Death panel in action I presume) She cleared up the problem (which I had properly diagnosed months earlier, which they refused to treat) while the “cheap doctors” moved on to the next patient/victim.

But many hospitals are apparently now scoring big bucks by keeping “your doctor” out of the hospital and assigning their own “cheap labor” itinerant incompetents. Even the staff pleaded for me to complain vehemently about the hospital’s practice.

If Obamacare is all about destroying private care to bring us “single payer” government hellacious care (which I think it is), then government care is not about better care, but complete fascist control of our lives. The real overlords don’t care about the care, they care about absolute control.

That doesn’t even factor in all the early retirements by doctors, or all the young people who have been or will be sufficiently disincentivized to give up their dreams of becoming doctors.

One of the fictions behind the cynically named ACA, a fiction you hear all the time from Obama, is that “health care” is equivalent to being “covered” by a one-size-fits-all insurance plan. It follows that whatever is not “covered” in the plan is assumed to be unavailable to you, while everything that is “covered” in the plan, on paper, is ipso facto provided to you.

The whole question of whether there would be professionals and other resources to treat your medical conditons seems to have been hardly on the radar. Now your doctor (if you can find one) will be required to function primarily, it appears, as a collector of personal data for the government’s database.

But who needs medical treatment anyway, as long as you’ve got “health care”?

There are no Republicans just as there are no Democrats. What tag do you put on people who seemingly have no convictions, no principles, and who arrogantly dismiss the needs of their constituency? Most do not have a core belief system. They are in it for power and prestige. Judging by their actions there can be no other reason.

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